Orienteering race 1:05:28 [5] 6.3 km (10:23 / km) +150m 9:17 / km
shoes: 200803 NB MT800
The 2008 North American Orienteering Championships middle distance course. I have a very poor historical record of Middle Distance races at A-meets, with runs at the 2008 US Middle Distance Champs, 2008 West Point meet, 2008 US Team Trials, and the 2008 Canadian Championships.
My first observation of today's race is that this was the best Middle distance course I have ever run. I navigated well to all but one of the controls, and I ran well - though sluggishly - throughout the course. The map was very good, but the control placement was not as good as I had expected for a middle distance and a championship meet. Many of the controls had strong catching features, and there were a few controls where some trail running was the optimal route.
Historically, I have not done very well on middle distance; each of my five previous middles has had at least one major error (> 10 minutes) with the exception of West Point. On this course, I made a very conservative route choice - running to the road on control 2 rather than attacking directly. It was reasonable in the sense that I expect difficult navigation on middle distance, but given that the road was a close catching feature, I should have attacked up the reentrant.
I ran conservatively for the next few controls, but stayed in strong contact through control 12. I overshot control 6 by about twenty meters after going over the hill; I just didn't see the control. I had an unfortunate encounter with a field of stinging nettles en route to control 12.
Another great weakness of mine is encountering other orienteers - especially extremely good orienteers. While I was running on the trail toward 12, I saw Eddie Bergeron approach from the south. I was ahead of him, had great contact, and had chosen a good attack to the control, so I pushed my pace and beat him to 12. I saw it about 20 meters before the flag, even though it apparently was in the wrong place. However, because I was trying not to think about Eddie, I hadn't considered my route to 13, which was one of the more complex legs. Eddie took off, and I considered it unethical to follow him. So, I ran in the same direction, but slower than Eddie; I lost sight of him after perhaps 90 seconds and had no idea where I was. I relocated off the plateau south of the control and probably only lost 2-3 minutes.
Areas to improve: reading the map quickly and efficiently, running endurance and speed, encountering other orienteers (hopefully pursuing them), and route simplification.